


Wordpicture: Frodo Baggins

by Deannie



Series: Wordpictures [12]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-25
Updated: 2003-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the memory of his absent friends can't call him back, it seems that Samwise always can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wordpicture: Frodo Baggins

It calls to him, always. It whispers in a black tongue he cannot understand, but secretly yearns to speak. A tongue of power beyond imagining--and cruelty beyond reason.  


How did Bilbo stand it for so long? The constant pressure of the thing, the endless struggle just to remain himself. It demands to be taken to its master, and the insistent goading never ends.  


It does not beg, of course. The ring... the... _precious_ ring... is too strong for that, too powerful, too perfect. And that perfection pulls at him. So beautiful, that ring. So flawless and so thrumming with an energy that could give him the world...  


Or destroy it.  


It is that thought which often pulls him back, as the ring hovers tauntingly above his finger, the hand that holds it trembling with the need to give up. Just give up, Frodo Baggins, the ring murmurs. Give in to me, and I will give you everything that you could ever want.  


But it cannot give him back his friends. It cannot resurrect Gandalf from the darkness of Khazadum. It cannot raise Boromir from his grave, wherever it may be.  


And what of his kin? Merry and Pippin? And what of Aragorn? Surely he and Legolas would never have let harm come to Boromir and the others if they could help it. All of them might be dead now, and he may never know for sure. No doubt Faramir did not inquire of the others in the fellowship, when he learned of his brother's death.  


And if they are dead, then Frodo himself led them all to it, didn't he? Into Moria where Gandalf left them, away from camp on the shores of the great river... He left to save them, then watched them all try to follow, try to help. And in his bumbling attempts to keep them safe, he probably ended up sealing their fates as tightly as he has sealed his own and Sam's.  


Dear Sam... Frodo glances at him, curled in a defensive ball, managing to look like a guard, even in his sleep. All Sam wanted was to go home to the Shire. Home, where the bushes would be greening now, at the first blush of spring. The buttercups would litter the meadows outside Bag End, and Sam would be sure to pick a few--just a few--to ensure that a certain young woman would have a bouquet of them, all for her own.  


When the memory of his absent friends can't call him back, it seems that Samwise always can. A touch of his hand, the sound of his voice--just his steadfast presence beside him is enough to give Frodo the strength to struggle on against the voice and the pain and the ever-watching eye of Sauron.  


But how long will it last? How long will the love of a friend sustain him? How many times can he deny the voice that calls to him in the light now, as well as the darkness? How can he be sure that he won't turn on his companion, as Smeagol did so many years ago?  


And why, he asks himself darkly, does he not just find the strength within himself, and leave Sam in peace, where he belongs?  


But the voice grows louder now, and Frodo reaches out and feels Sam's hand grip his, even as the younger hobbit sleeps, and Frodo understands...  


Sometimes, there are simply burdens that are too heavy to carry alone.

* * *  
The End


End file.
